Darren McCord is a French Canadians-born firefighter with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire now serving as the fire marshal for the Pittsburgh Civic Arena, after being unable to save a young girl from a house fire. During the Stanley Cup Finals, a group of terrorists take the Vice President of the United States and several other VIPs hostage in a luxury suite. Former Central Intelligence Agency operative Joshua Foss has the arena wired with explosives, and plans to blow it up at the end of the game, while having hundreds of millions of dollars wired into several off shore accounts. Darren must not just stop Foss, but somehow send the game into overtime and rescue both his son and daughter.